49

The Master has no mind of her own.
She works with the mind of the people.

She is good to people who are good.
She is also good to people who aren’t good.
This is true goodness.

She trusts people who are trustworthy.
She also trusts people who aren’t trustworthy.
This is true trust.

The Master’s mind is like space.
People don’t understand her.
They look to her and wait.
She treats them like her own children.

Tao Te Ching by Lao-tsu trans. by Stephen Mitchell

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HUMAN REALIZATION

Functional inchoate
heart-mind emerging
from productive relations.

shared knowledge, beliefs, and aspirations
are formed.
Human realization is achieved
by life-in-community that forms one
whole-heartedly.

(We do not have a mind)
but become like-minded by speaking
to one another in a communicating community.

This is self and world enlargement
finding the best in those who have been
weighed, measured, and dismissed
as the least,
to get the most out of those ingredients.

That, is the definition of sagacity.

This passage spins me around, wobbling like a top. The initial segment of lines describe the approach that the Taoist Sage/Master takes toward common people. A remarkable disposition indeed! One which receives with unwavering good will the often twisted, distorted attitudes, and opinions expressed by the public.

The section entitled HUMAN REALIZATION is a faithful rendering of exposition of Lao-tsu verse 49 by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall. I have put the language of Ames and Hall in verse form for emphasis. “Take aways” for me are:

1. Individual maturity is the end result of face to face engagement. My heart-mind is more or less chaotic, unformed until someone listens to me. Ask yourself how does a productive relationship feel?
2. We formulate jointly the beliefs which we share, and the community we envision ourselves to become. I am formed by a shared life.
3. My mind achieves being, is real-ized when I speak with you. And yours, as you speak with me. Community = discourse. A mind has no existence prior to community.
4. My sense of self, and my world are enlarged together, coincident happenings! As often as you and I have felt ourselves to be on the outside of “the in-crowd” one thing alone matters: getting the necessary from what “we” already have. That my friend is very good news!

Time enough for a tune to hold onto. Black Coffee in Bed by Squeeze released in 1982.